Mantra is a repeated phrase designed to keep your consciousness centered. It’s a perspective giving device. It’s adding a third component to every relationship you have with objects in the universe.
This could be OM, this could be the sun, this could be Buddha consciousness, this could be called the witness. It’s a technique of adding a third component in order to get free of the identification with either of the other two.
You can use the mantra to find a center in yourself and to keep that third component going. Which allows you to watch your own drama all day long. It’s all a vehicle, and it’s going to have to go. But mantra is a
useful vehicle...
- Ram Dass -